Exciting developments in the life of Monkey Bridge (ex-Nova boss and now convicted criminal)…apparently while waiting for his appeal to start he’s been staying in a hotel in Tokyo.

Well some members of the Yamaguchi Yakuza clan (based in Kobe/Osaka – actually the boss lives just up the road from me apparently) found out where he was and held him hostage yesterday for 3 hours!

Not sure why they let him go, but they were arrested immediately after.

There were always rumours amongst the staff and teachers at Nova that he was “connected” (some of the Nova investment money was mob money), but they were just rumours….hmm…maybe some-one wants their money back and it’s not just students and teachers!

Related posts:

1. Ex-Nova Boss Gets Jail Time!
2. Nova Crimelord Monkey Bridge in the Dock
3. Nova News : Monkey Bridge Was Innocent!

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Post tags: Eikaiwa, Monkey Bridge, Nova, Teaching English in Japan, Yakuza

Just a quick one this time, but wanted to post some happy news…
Monkey Bridge (my old boss at Nova – the head honcho embezzler) has finally been sentenced to 3 and a half years in Jail! yay!

I thought he’d get away with it, but the Japanese justice system didn’t let me down!

His defence are obviously appealing (not to me they’re not!) but fingers crossed it’s turned down.

Lots of happy ex-nova teachers at the moment!

Related posts:

1. Ex-Nova Boss Kidnapped by Yakuza
2. Nova Crimelord Monkey Bridge in the Dock
3. Nova News : Monkey Bridge Was Innocent!

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Post tags: Eikaiwa, Monkey Bridge, Nova, Teaching English in Japan

Finally, after about 18months since Nova (the English conversation school in Japan) collapsed due to, shall we say, mis-management of funds, the arch villain of the piece, Monkey Bridge (Nozomu Sahashi) is on trial for “Professional embezzlement involving misuse of the reserve funds og an employees’ mutual aid organization”.

Which is basically a convoluted way of saying, he stole employees wages and rent from one company (Nova) and put the money in his own company.

When the trial started apparently he apologised to staff and teachers (many of whom had to leave Japan and go back to their home country, some of whose only experience of Japan is working for 2 months for no wages while eating cup noodles every day, before calling home for financial help for a flight home), and said he’d done nothing wrong.

Now the prosectors are after 5 years jail time, he’s changed his tune a bit and is now saying he’s fully responsible and will try to pay back the money.

He’s also claiming that it was all one of his sub-ordinates ideas (to steal the cash) and he (Monkey Bridge) always intended to pay it back.

The ruling is expected at the end of August, and I’m hoping for a little jail time for the man. (Not that I hold a grudge at all )

Related posts:

1. Nova News : Monkey Bridge Was Innocent!
2. Ex-Nova Boss Kidnapped by Yakuza
3. Ex-Nova Boss Gets Jail Time!

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Post tags: Eikaiwa, Monkey Bridge, Nova, Teaching English in Japan

I just discovered in the newspaper today, that my old boss, Monkey Bridge from Nova was let off criminal charges last year by the Osaka police.

Don’t know where I was when that news was announced!

Apparently, syphoning off money from one company into another (that you own) is not an offence, as is taking about a third of employees wages to pay for the rent in their company accomodation but then not actually paying the landlords the rent, so when the company collapses there are lots of irate landlords demanding back rent that you’d already paid.

Or, convincing new comers to Japan to sign up for an insurance policy of an affiliated company that has no legal standing in Japan (in Japan everyone has to have some kind of medical insurance, usually from the government, the Nova policy, run by JMA in New Zealand, wasn’t recognised by the government), so when you are out of a job you have to back-pay insurance charges to the government.

This is not a criminal offence either.

Nor is conning thousands of Japanese students out of money through their very dubious small print in the contracts.

All not illegal.

I found out that this wasn’t illegal in the newspaper article this morning which said that a recent appeal review from court-connected citizens decided that it actually probably was illegal. Or ‘unjust’ as they put it.

Grrrrr…

Anyway, rant over, normal service will resume tomorrow.

tatafornow

Related posts:

1. Nova Crimelord Monkey Bridge in the Dock
2. NOVA about to Collapse
3. And there’s still more NOVA news…

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Post tags: Eikaiwa, Monkey Bridge, Nova, Teaching English in Japan

I got a voice message last week, from some guy at head office of Nova, asking me if I wanted my old job back!

Apparently they’re pretty short staffed in Hyogo (the ‘county’ – or ken in Japanese, where I live).

Not sure if this is because they (allegedly) sacked or forced to leave (by making conditions unbearable) many of the teachers in the rural areas, but kept the schools open, so now have to ship people out of the city schools into the country thus leaving the city schools understaffed…(bizarre businees model), or that people are just leaving in droves (especially as apparently despite the Japanese humidity and summer heat, 37degress in Kyoto(!) there’s a limit on air conditioner usage to save money).

I didn’t call him back, but then a few days later, one of the Japanese staff from my old school called me up (a new lady, didn’t know her), also asking me if I wanted to come back. When I told her “err..no”, she burst out laughing (maybe she gets that reaction a lot), said she understood, and we parted very amicably, both still laughing at the absudity of it all.

Mind you, who knows what the future holds, maybe I shouldn’t go burning too many bridges….

Also in the news this morning, Monkey Bridge (Sahashi, the ex nova president, currently indicted on embezzling over 300million Yen from his company), will not be charged with “intentionally” not paying all the staff.
Guess he really did mean all those bizarre faxes he sent out to us…

Related posts:

1. More NOVA news
2. Nova News : Monkey Bridge Was Innocent!
3. Ex-Nova Boss Kidnapped by Yakuza

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Post tags: Eikaiwa, Monkey Bridge, Nova, Teaching English in Japan